Nick Williams on dealing with setbacks and rejection when working at home

I don’t know about you, but I think that one of the most difficult things about working from home is not having colleagues on hand to share the disappointment when plans don’t work out. If you spend a lot of time alone it’s all too easy to start taking it personally.

This week, bestselling author and coach Nick Williams (shown left in his home office), in the final part of his interview about working from home, talks about how he has learnt to deal with failure over more than 20 years of working at home:

‘Whilst we do things that are personal and mean a lot to us, I do think we need to create a little distance between ourselves and our work. We are so much more than our work and our projects. It has taken me a long time to know that neither my successes nor my failures define me. In the midst of a set back, success is on its way, and while I am riding high, there is a probably a valley ahead.

‘I aim to develop a strong “professional core” – an awareness that I experience success and failure, but I am the witness of them – I am not them. To me that has a spiritual core to it – remembering who I really am.

‘Even after twenty two years I still get upset and feel bad when I fail, get criticised or something doesn’t turn out. But I don’t feel bad for so long now. I have learned to get support, laugh, share and get help and I find I get out of my funk much quicker now.

‘The more I have put myself in the company of fellow inspired entrepreneurs as well, I have realised that this is not a character defect on my part, and is simply part of the territory that we all encounter.’

I agree with Nick that it takes time and experience to develop ways to handle disappointment. What experiences have you had, and what have they taught you?

Read what Nick has to say about isolation and resistance.